Frequent visits to hair salons are an important part of maintaining healthy and attractive hair. Of course, such visits typically require a considerable amount of a person's time, especially for people with thick and/or long hair. Often, the amount of time spent at the hair salon is a direct result of the hair stylists' need to brush and restrain the hair in sections using a brush and one or more styling clips, and/or other hair restraint devices, i.e., hair styling tools. Of course, once the hair is separated into the desired sections, the hair stylist can cut, blow-dry, and/or style the hair. Unfortunately, using numerous separate hair styling tools and clips is time consuming and tedious, especially when the clips hold only a minimal amount of hair and are difficult to insert within and take out of someone's hair. Often the chair in which the subject sits during hairstyling is disposed a distance away from a table on which hair styling tools may be placed. Accordingly, it may be inconvenient and time consuming for the hair stylist to continuously remove the clips, set the clips on the table, and pick the clips up again for reuse throughout the hair styling process. As an added problem, using numerous hair styling tools and clips is costly for the hair stylist. Of course, styling hair at home also suffers from a number of these draw backs, including, but not limited to, the large amount of time consumed continuously removing and reusing the clips and the cost of purchasing numerous hair clips.
At least one known hair apparatus for grooming and decorating hair is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,186,151 and depicted in FIG. 11. The apparatus includes a hair clip and a grooming device, i.e., a small brush. The problems with the hair apparatus presented in U.S. Pat. No. 6,186,151 are numerous. For example, the narrow width of the hair clip and the minimal number of jaws included on the hair clip are unsuitable for holding a substantial amount of hair. As a result, a hair stylist would need to use more than one of the hair clips to separate someone's hair in sections. This is not only time consuming for the hair stylist who could have otherwise booked additional appointments, but is also inconvenient for the person who is having his or her hair styled. As an added problem, the jaws are susceptible to becoming tangled in the hair and often break, leading to discomfort and the need to consistently replace the hair clips. Moreover, as a result of the narrow width of the grooming device, the grooming device is unsuitable for brushing a substantial amount of hair. As such, the hair stylist must run the grooming device through the hair numerous times in order to brush someone's hair.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,816,267 describes a barrette combined with a comb. The barrette is designed to be adjusted subject to the volume of hair to be clamped. The barrette is also designed to be converted into a hairbrush. The barrette, shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,816,267, includes an elongated base plate, a comb strip, and a clamping plate. The comb strip includes a number of teeth extending therefrom. Unfortunately, the barrette cannot be easily inserted into someone's hair without become tangled, nor can the barrette hold a substantial amount of hair. As such, the barrette would not be suitable for use in a hair salon by a hair stylist who needs to separate and retain large sections of someone's hair quickly and efficiently. In the same vein, the barrette, due to the rows of spaced teeth, is not conducive for brushing a substantial amount of the user's hair.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,638,836 describes a hair clip including a base plate having comb-tooth-shaped lugs and a hair retainer connected to the base plate. The hair retainer has one end that opens and closes with respect to the base plate. The lugs are designed to retain someone's hair between the base plate and the hair retainer when the hair clip is closed. In the closed configuration, the lugs grip only the minimal amount of hair that can fit between the base plate and the hair retainer. In an open configuration, the hair retainer is swingable away from the base plate only up to a limited angle. The lugs are then exposed for use as a hair brush, with the hair retainer intended to serve as a handle. Unfortunately, as a result of the limited angle, the hair clip cannot completely fold so that the back surfaces of the base plate and the hair retainer touch each other. Thus, the hair clip is not designed to allow the back surface of the handle to sit on someone's head with the lugs exposed so that large sections of the hair can be placed over and retained by the lugs.
Other known hair devices which serve the dual-purposes of combing and restraining someone's hair often provide the user with a comb and hair clip combination having numerous moving parts. Such parts are susceptible to breaking, requiring the user to replace the parts or the entire hair device. Moreover, such comb and hair clip combinations can only hold small amounts of hair at a time. Thus, a hair stylist would need to use numerous clips to restrain sections of the hair. Additional known hair devices include foldable hair brushes which fail to provide the ability to restrain the user's hair.
Therefore, a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above.